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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

For the most part, "the public" (i.e. taxpayers) doesn't fund NPR. NPR receives no direct federal funding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding

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You are making a strawman argument, I didn't say "the public" meant taxpayers, I was talking about the "the public" in National "public" Radio and the "public" Broadcasting System, and the federally funded Corporation for "public" Broadcasting.

And in any case, your clarification is baloney, you are either being fooled by NPR's accounting sleights of hand, or you are helping to propagandize it. Federal money does in fact flow through public broadcasting's network of "shell" companies such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to local stations to and then to NPR. Here is an article on PBS.org about Congress potentially cutting funding to NPR. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/us-house-votes-to-cut-np... Yes, that was 2011, but the same baloney about NPR not receiving direct federal funding was the story back then too.

In any case, my argument that the works of public broadcasting belong under a creative commons license is referring to the same public that the stations bray about endlessly, "you the listener".

> According to the 2009 financial statement, about 50% of NPR revenues come from the fees it charges member stations for programming and distribution charges. Typically, NPR member stations receive funds through on-air pledge drives, corporate underwriting, state and local governments, educational institutions, and the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). In 2009, member stations derived 6% of their revenue from federal, state and local government funding, 10% of their revenue from CPB grants, and 14% of their revenue from universities. While NPR does not receive any direct federal funding, it does receive a small number of competitive grants from CPB and federal agencies like the Department of Education and the Department of Commerce. This funding amounts to approximately 2% of NPR's overall revenues.

So, still a small (10%ish) portion of their budget even if you count the government/CPB-derived portion of the revenue from member stations.

If a small amount of federal funding meant they had to make everything public domain, they'd probably just give up that funding and make some cuts. No one wins there, IMO.

again, I am NOT and never was making an argument about federal funding. You are.

I'm talking about the public who is according to public broadcasting the biggest portion of their support.

"The public" funds McDonalds, then. My buying a hamburger doesn't mean I get the rights to the McDonalds trademark.

People donate to NPR of their own free will with the complete understanding that they're doing it as a donation, not as a "make our content public domain" licensing agreement. A pledge drive donation isn't a purchase, you haven't paid for anything, for the same reasons donating to Obama's campaign didn't buy you a night in the Lincoln Bedroom.

You are not coming close to understanding what I'm saying.

I don't think it's instructive to compare public broadcasting with McDonalds (a for profit company), I'd compare them to Wikipedia. Wikipedia goes to great pains to maintain NPOV, and they give away their information product. I think public broadcasting should be more like Wikipedia; Wikipedia sets a higher standard for operating in the public interest.

"If a small amount of federal funding meant they had to make everything public domain, they'd probably just give up that funding and make some cuts. No one wins there, IMO."

Well, except the public, but they are never a concern in these decisions. Just a cash cow to be milked.

Not just picking on NPR, PBS has exactly the same problem. The folks who want to educate the world want to upload entire legal episodes to youtube, but the business folks in charge of the local stations don't want to go out of business, so...

> Well, except the public, but they are never a concern in these decisions.

I don't think the public would win from an NPR/PBS belt-tightening.

If NPR is owned by the government, and it's self-funded, then it's funded by taxpayers too.

You own the company, you control the intellectual property it generates, even if the company is "self-funded".

It isn't owned by the government, and it isn't self-funded.

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